Stepmotherland [REVIEW]
Stepmotherland by Darrel Alejandro Holnes is a collection of compelling poems that poignantly portrays the Black immigrant experience from an insider/outsider perspective. Divided into four parts, “Foreigner,” “Inmigrante,” “Citizen,” and “Patriot,” Stepmotherland chronicles the poet-speaker’s journey through various time periods and experiences. As the poetic narrative reveals, these experiences are often not in isolation as the poet-speaker often simultaneously relates an insider-outside feeling in their homeland and outside of it. As an Afro-Panamanian with roots in the West Indian community and the Indigenous community of El Chocó, Holnes pays homage to Indigenous communities globally and to “all Indigenous ancestors and stand against their erasure and to offer my gratitude for their guidance when writing these poems” (xi). This erasure informs the author’s consciousness. Holnes portrays these experiences with a unique style that often shifts from the use of vivid imagery to a cinematographic lens akin to a filmmaker. Further, the poet-speaker’s frequent use of the first person provides an insider’s perspective and an introspective lens that brings the reader into the poet-speaker’s imaginary.
The first section, “Foreigner,” symbolizes the poet-speaker’s foreigner status in his native Panama as an insider/outsider and chronicles the power of foreign invaders (United States). Comprising seven poems, “Foreigner” provides a graphic account of living through an invasion and its effect on the human condition.“Scenes from Operation Just Cause” provides an exterior and interior perspective of the United States invasion of Panama on December 20, 1989, to remove Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega (1934-2017). Holnes provides a “Bird’s Eye Shot,” from the perspective of the public, the United States, Panama, and the General, Manuel Noriega. In the poem, “El General speaks the country’s true name:/tierra de peces, regresa a mi” (7). The effect of the invasion is characterized poetically as “A strip of earth separating a golden glaze from the ocean’s cerulean surface shakes” (7). The perspective from the exterior juxtaposes with the interior one which takes place at the poet-speaker’s home at night. The effect of the invasion is clear, up close, and personal: “The lamp smashes on the floor and a broken piece misses my eye and slices my left cheek. I see my own blood for the very first time” (8). The poet-speaker shifts the focus from the national/exterior perspective to an interior one which emphasizes the effect of war on the human condition and those most affected, but often left out of the narrative. What stands out here is Holnes unique cinematographic technique which juxtaposes poetic verse with a cinematographic lens that captures the war from multiple perspectives and points of view.
While “Scenes from Operation Just Cause” chronicles the US invasion and its aftermath on Panamanian citizens, “Bread Pudding Grandmamma” shows the power of healing through food and turns its gaze toward the kitchen and the essential role of the Black matriarch in the family. Preparing bread pudding is not only a symbol of the poet-speaker’s and Panama’s West Indian ancestry but allows the central protagonist and grandmother to “bake everyday pains into guilty pleasures” (15). Food provides the power to heal. The poet-speaker chronicles the power of food to heal their own childhood wounds. The power of food to heal and accomplish the extraordinary is a longstanding metaphor in Latin American literature as evidenced by Laura Esquivel’s Como agua para chocolate (1989), which chronicles the power of food in a magically real environment.
The second section, “Inmigrante,” contains the poem “OTM or Other Than Mexican,” which points symbolically to the fact that in the United States Latinos are assumed to be Mexican, the dominant Latino sub-group in the US,especially in Texas where the author spent a significant amount of time. “OTM” plays with this concept through language and colloquial phrases spoken by Mexicans and Panamanians. For example, “Other than el arte de enganar / We juega vivo”—meaning that Other than the art of deception, Panamanians use the phrase juega vivo to signify deception (28).
In the third section, as a US “citizen,” the poet-speaker must “African Americanize.” In a unique style, Holnes defines the word in a dictionary format, with eight dictionary definitions. The name of the poem is spelled as a dictionary entry, “A·f·r·i·c·a·n·A·m·e·r·i·c·a·n·i·z·e,“ defined as follows:
\\v. 1. To enchant by turning my meneo into a bump & grind against a hard bass-driven synth rhythm/No longer a hand-hit on ton-tones, congas, and bongos/No more rumba y azúcar, el sabor de los congos/No more tu pum-pum mami, mami no me van matar/ Now I like that boom boom pow, chickens jackin my style/Now can I get a hey? Can I get a yo?/ You can get with this or -wait-is that how it goes? (37)
This first entry pokes fun at the difficulties that Latin@ immigrants of African descent have in the US who are often forced to assimilate and adopt the culture of the mainstream African-American culture at the expense of their own Latin@ identity. Holnes’ portrayal of the Black Latin@ experience in the US recalls what scholars Miriam Jiménez Román and Juan Flores call “triple-consciousness.” Borrowing from W.E. B. DuBois’s theory of double consciousness that he espoused in The Souls of Black Folks (1903), Jiménez Román and Flores note: “one ever feels his three-ness—a Latin@, a Negro, and American; three souls, three thoughts, three unreconciled strivings; three warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder” (15). Triple consciousness explains the uniqueness of the Afro-Latin@ experience in the US as Latino@, Black, and United States American. Holnes explains this poetically by creating a poem in the form of a dictionary entry that lists the “requirements” to be Black American. Often, the Black Latin@ is forced to give up their Latin@ identity, delineated in the poem as “rumba, azúcar, el sabor de los congos, pum-pum mami, mami no me van matar!” (37). The poet-speaker points to the fact that Black Latin@s are marginalized not only in the US as an immigrant and Spanish speaker, but also within the dominant US Latin@ culture.
In the last section, “Patriot,” Holnes delves into sexuality, drag, and identity problematics. The poems center on identity and reflect the African Diaspora experience. “Naturalization” and “Black Parade” deal with the poet-speaker’s experiences with “coming out” and coming to terms with their sexuality as queer in the United States. “Black Parade” links “coming out” with coming to America.
Stepmotherland relates the uneasiness of being an immigrant and the experiences of a Black Latin@ immigrant in the US. The term, stepmotherland, points to the lack of identity, belonging, and inclusion that the poet-speaker experiences in their native homeland and in the US. This identity problematic runs triple deep as a Black, Latin@, and (African) American in an adopted homeland that does not feel like home. Holnes beautifully accomplishes this through vivid imagery and a unique style that mixes poetic verse with poetic narrative often through a cinematographic lens and gaze.
Stepmotherland (2022)
By Darrel Alejandro Holnes
104 pgs. University of Notre Dame Press. $15.00.
Works Cited
Jiménez Román, Miriam and Juan Flores, eds. “Introduction,” The Afro-Latin@ Reader: History and Culture in the United States. Duke University Press, 2010 1-18.
Dr. Sonja S. Watson is Dean of the AddRan College of Liberal Arts and Professor of Spanish at Texas Christian University.Her areas of research include Afro-Panamanian Literature, Hispanic Caribbean Literature and reggae en español. In 2017, Watson received the National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Award for Hispanic Serving Institutions for her research on “Globalization, Transculturation, and Hybrid Identity in Panamanian Music: reggae en español.” Additionally, Watson has published articles in several peer-reviewed journals and is co-editor of the journal PALARA. Her book, The Politics of Race in Panama: Afro-Hispanic and West Indian Literary Discourses of Contention (University Press of Florida 2014, 2017) deals with the forging of Afro-Panamanian identity. She is also author of the co-edited volume, Transatlantic, Transcultural, and Transnational Dialogues on Identity, Culture, and Migration, which analyzes the diasporic experiences of migratory and postcolonial subjects.